Read on Gray, all will be answered.
Santa Cruz Invitational Day 1: Blue Grant Hill Pistons Jersey
A tourney officially kicks off the minute you see your first footbagger, and ends the second after they leave the sight of your goodbye. So Day 1 starts with my first sighting of Nasty Nate since Worlds 04. Soul hug and quick catch up watching luggage on the carousel, then we're out on the curb waiting for Dat's ride. We hop in, I say hey to Dat and introduce myself to the two new faces in the back seat: Zebariah Jackson and Kyle "you're stupid" Hewitt. It's Zeb's first tourney and Kyle's second, and I can't help but feel a little jealous. It's been almost 9 years since my first tournament, and I still can remember everything in vivid detail. Yeah, going to tournaments now is fun, cause I see old friends, but there's something so special and memorable about your first tourney. Looking back, my first tourney really was a huge turning point in my life. Really, footbag is the only thing I have in common with the Ken from 9 years ago. It's a good common thread.
We drop by Google headquarters to pick up a camera from Steve. Dat namedrops him and the security guard lets us by. If I was the security guard and somebody asked me: "where can I find Steve Goldberg?" I'd probably reply with: "why don't you Google him?" I'd also probably be fired my first day. We park and wait, which in Nate's case means dropping the first string I see at the tourney. 20 plus contacts first try, and I immediately notice how even simple tricks like spin clipper look so much more controlled than they did in Montreal. Dat worries we may get Steve in trouble for shredding, so we tone it down my just kicking hack. This suits me fine, since I'm planning on not shredding on Day 1, and saving all my juice for comp the next day.
We hit an In-N-Out burger, and by now the tension of my travels is officially all out of me. I don't really talk to anybody in Arizona, so I really enjoyed talking all weekend to my heart's content. My "animal style" burger is good, the sun is shining, and there's that almost tangible excitement in the air that's present at the start of all good weekends. With good food in us, we drive down to Santa Cruz to Emily's place. In the back seat I watch some footbag vids on Zeb's computer, and talk more footbag. We barely avoid one deadly accident, and then nearly hit another car right in front of Emily's place. Luckily, she wasn't around to get incriminated. We decide to kill some time by getting in a small shred by her house (by a church).
While I had originally planned on not shredding the first day, my trip was so bad that I kinda figured a liiiitle shred would be therapeutic. So Nasty didn't have to work very hard at all to make me cave in.
shreddaily wrote:C-Fan wrote:. I think I'll take Friday off, and not play til comp. We'll see if I can resist.
I will be doing everything in my power to make sure you CAN"T RESIST!!!
The first circle of a tourney is always memorable, and this was no exception. Nasty, Zeb, Kyle and me started it off, and then later on Fletcher and some others joined in. I couldn't get over the fact that I was able to play footbag outside. In Arizona it's too hot to even just stand around, let alone jump around. But SC was surprisingly cool the whole weekend. I hadn't played with Nate in 2 years, so he had a lot of stuff that was new to me. I was impressed by his bothsided play, even with pixie sets, and of course, long runs. I was also pretty surprised to see his tripless shuffle game so on. As for me, I played pretty well in this circle. Flip pdlos, fogs, and beds are things I had been skooling lately, and they felt reliable (first shred of the tourney), but later in the weekend I found myself retreating to more familiar tricks more and more. I gave Kyle some tips on Phoenix, and he made visible progress with it. I remember giving lots of high fives.
Once Emily arrived, we dumped our gear off, then hit the boardwalk area. Jeremy Mirken was there, already putting his shoes on, so we wasted no time in starting up a couple more circles. I remember in one circle Jeremy, Nate and I were all hitting symp DLOs cleanly and pretty easily. Nate was getting GDLO bsos real easily, and would hit bsos combos that looked so easy, it took me some thought before realizing it was bsos and not the same side. Stuff like merkon-dimwalk, but also things like ikon bsos. I think the coolest combo I saw was Jeremy's whirr-inspin mirage. I felt I played well, but I didn't push myself too much. The only notable thing to me was that my symp whirling sets on both sides were feeling good, even midstring. I also got to play with Dat, which was cool because we didn't get to shred at CSS.
After the boardwalk, we hit "99 Bottles" for the players party and dinner. The food looked pretty good, so I decided to buy one of the more expensive dinners. In my experience, tournies usually are fun but you pay for it in one of 3 basic departments: hygiene (showers), food, or sleep. So I figured I should eat a good meal while I had the chance, especially the day before comp. I got a seared snapper burrito which was awesomeness in Mexican form, and had a little Anchor Steam. I drank very little at this tourney, partially because I figured I could drink at home, whereas I wanted to suck up all the social contact I could while I was there. During dinner Mike Hansen showed up, so I went to say hey and thank him for various things he'd helped me out with.
We went to Jeremy's briefly, then went to check out the venue where we'd compete the next day. Considering I played 2 sessions and had competition the next day, I decided I'd set up a 4 square court and just mess around a bit. But somehow, I ended up getting back into my shred gear, and when I saw Lon and Jim playing, I stupidly joined in. I was so tired while we were playing, that I felt my eyes drooping some, but I really wanted to play with Jim. At CSS we didn't get a chance to play due to injury and bad luck, so I pounced on the opportunity. A few weeks ago I PMed Jim asking him to hit scorp-swifter-flurry, so I asked him if he had hit it yet. Sure enough, he showed it to me a couple times. Just as pretty as I thought it would be. I also asked him if he could hit fog out of swifter, and within a couple tries he showed me swifter-bed, which was sweet. I didn't hit much of anything, but it was fun.
Back at Jeremy's I took a shower, and hung out just a little bit before going to bed. Jeremy had a nice big bed, and I didn't bring sheets, so he kindly let me split the bed. In the main room, everybody was watching the new Vasek vid where he hits all that new whirr stuff. "Wow, a room full of guys around a TV watching a teen in short shorts jumping around. Forget this, I'm gonna go sleep in Jeremy's bed."
I went to sleep with mixed feelings. On one hand, I was incredibly happy that I made it out. Only one day had elapsed, and I already knew it was worth it for me to come out. Just a super fun day. That said, I felt a bit stupid to have played that last session, because I didn't need to, and I was afraid it might tire me out or make me sore during the next day's comp. But it was done, so I went to sleep and hoped for the best the next day.
I'm also increasingly leaning more towards Japan, and less towards Worlds, but its still possible I may get an internship in NYC, in which case I probably won't go overseas this summer. If that happens, I'll make it a point of honor to hit the US Open in Portland.
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Man, that spiralled out of control. As several of you have guessed, that wasn't a Shred30 score. That was a Scrabble score in a game with Jeremy Mirken. We thought it would be funny to just post the number and see how many people would just assume it was a Shred score (and my shred score to boot!). The original plan was to start blogging the event today, and eventually get to explaining it, but based on all the PMs and posts I've gotten, I think I should nip this one in the bud as early as possible. I did break 200 in comp, but nothing close to 282. Sorry for the ruse, I didn't expect it to be taken this seriously. 
